Three in­ducted

Six in­dus­try heroes hon­oured on Wall in two years

Three trans­port in­dus­try icons were in­ducted into the De­niliquin and District Trans­port In­dus­try Wall of Fame on Fri­day night.

Allan Wat­son, Neil Scott and Lud­vik ‘Victa’ Lum­bar (dec) were hon­oured for their con­tri­bu­tions at a gala din­ner at the De­niliquin RSL Club, as part of the three­day De­niliquin Truck Show & In­dus­try Expo.

They were se­lected from 11 nom­i­nees by an in­de­pen­dent judg­ing panel.

All three trucking stal­warts boast im­pres­sive ca­reers in the in­dus­try.

For Neil Scott, the pur­chase of his first truck in 1950 was a means of mak­ing money in his new home­town of De­niliquin.

This turned into an al­most 40 year ca­reer for Mr Scott, which also gave his chil­dren an in­tro­duc­tion into the in­dus­try and the busi­ness world.

‘‘I came from a sta­tion about 90 miles the other side of Bal­ranald and even­tu­ally my sis­ter took over the prop­erty and I came to De­niliquin to live,’’ he said.

‘‘I al­ways had an in­ter­est in trucks. The op­por­tu­nity turned up (to buy one) and I was do­ing noth­ing else at the time.

‘‘In 1950 I bought my first truck and started cart­ing sheep.

‘‘My brother and sis­ter had a shed here in De­niliquin, so that fed well into stock cart­ing.’’

Mr Scott started mod­estly, but grew his busi­ness to a fleet of eight trucks, at the same time as grow­ing his fam­ily.

Even­tu­ally his three chil­dren — Bruce, Wayne (dec) and Lynda — joined him in the fam­ily busi­ness.

‘‘When dad sold the busi­ness in 1989 we all pur­sued other in­ter­ests,’’ Bruce said.

‘‘Wayne re­mained a truck driver, but Lynda and I went in another di­rec­tion.

‘‘I now de­sign pro­grams, but I work with Pur­tills so I’m still con­nected to the trans­port in­dus­try in some way.’’

The week­end was bit­ter­sweet for the Scott fam­ily, with one of 16 plaques in a me­mo­rial ser­vice on Sun­day ded­i­cated to Wayne Scott.

‘‘I’m hon­oured to re­ceive the award but I didn’t know I was nom­i­nated so it was quite a shock,’’ he said.

Mr Wat­son said he has been in­volved in the trans­port in­dus­try since he was a young­ster.

‘‘I bought my first truck when I was 17,’’ he said.

‘‘I couldn’t drive it, and it was a six or seven tonne tip-truck.’’

Mr Wat­son has been in­volved in a va­ri­ety of ar­eas in the trans­port in­dus­try over the years from cart­ing stock to fer­til­izer, and is still ac­tively in­volved in the ev­ery­day run­ning of his busi­ness.

‘‘The in­dus­try is im­por­tant for the whole com­mu­nity and the coun­try — we would be lost with­out it,’’ he said.

The back­bone of our na­tion’s trans­port­ing in­dus­try in­cludes pi­o­neers like Mr Lum­bar, who ar­rived in Aus­tralia on Jan­uary 11, 1954 from Yu­goslavia. He passed away in 2001.

Be­gin­ning his jour­ney pick­ing grapes in Went­worth, Mr Lum­bar ar­rived in De­niliquin in mid-March 1961 with his AA160 In­ter with a 28ft strap trailer.

In De­niliquin, he cut a 12 tonne loads of fire­wood with his wife by his side, and then started the 10-hour trip to Mel­bourne to de­liver his freight.

From there, Mr Lum­bar be­gan load­ing freight, with Gille­spies hard­ware store be­ing his first ma­jor client. Slowly he be­gan to add trucks and move gro­ceries, which was later fol­lowed by beer.

In the late 1960s Mr Lum­bar moved the busi­ness to Sloane St, and by this time the De­niliquin to Mel­bourne ser­vice was ‘‘like clock­work’’, run­ning up to three trucks a day.

In the early 1970s, a ser­vice pit and truck wash was added to his premises.

Mr Lum­bar’s son, Frank, said his con­tri­bu­tions to the in­dus­try are ‘‘in­valu­able’’.

‘‘Victa was the first car­rier in Deni to make gen­eral freight a pri­or­ity and do it suc­cess­fully,’’ he said.

‘‘He was also the first one to cart bulk grain on a flat top trailer with grain traps in the floor (early model con­vert­ible).’’

Frank said his dad would be ‘‘pretty proud’’ to re­ceive the award.

‘‘The in­dus­try was his bread and but­ter — he loved the Aus­tralian life­style and he was a pi­o­neer in his own right.’’

In­ductees to the Wall of Fame last year were Kate and Alan Mur­phy and David ‘Sher­bie’ Grim­i­son.